


Another Auld Lang Syne

by colbyjack



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, They're only in their early thirties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-02 22:23:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2828150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colbyjack/pseuds/colbyjack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"We drank a toast to innocence</i>
  <br/>
  <i>We drank a toast to now.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>And tried to reach beyond the emptiness,</i>
  <br/>
  <i>But neither one knew how.”</i>
</p><p>-</p><p>Harry and Niall are old flames who eventually find each other again, of course, because the universe doesn’t want to give up on them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Auld Lang Syne

**Author's Note:**

> At long last, I crawled out of my dusty, cobweb infested rut and wrote this for the holidays! I was inspired by the song "Same Old Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg because it gave me that gross achey feeling you get when you crave angsty fic. I also dedicate this to my favorite hype girl, Laxmi colormenarry.
> 
> Anyway, I really, really hope I haven't lost my touch and that you all like this. Please leave me a comment if you did like it, or message me on my blog, nollymurs. I love you!! Thank you for reading my stuff!!

There are thousands of lights and there are thousands of sounds; there are so many voices, so many ribbons, so many steaming cups of coffee that burn the tongues of those who are too eager—always _so_ eager—and it’s this night of the year when everyone amasses to the very essence of the word. There are cars, there are strollers, and there are gleaming, golden chains on purses, but there isn’t silence and there isn’t stillness. Somehow though, despite the incessant Christmas music playing faintly through the intercoms on the ceiling, there’s a kind of tranquility in the bottle of red wine nestled in Harry’s right hand.

He stares at it intently as if the magnification of his fingers through the curved glass made anything clearer to him. Is he scrutinizing himself for looking at things too closely? Whatever it is, he catches himself frowning from the thought, and he promptly loosens up his eyebrows and relaxes his lips.

He shuts his eyes tightly and blinks five or six times to reset his mind.

Before deciding to put the bottle back on the shelf, he held it with both hands and ran a thumb along the calligraphic label. He draws in a lungful of air when the clinking sound snaps him back to where he is in this world, in that moment in time, which was at the end of aisle 13 in the Publix that’s down the street from his apartment. Everything is so surreal; from the holiday lights that framed the stacks of red soda cartons in the shape of Santa Clause to the visible snowflakes that peppered the hair of a cheerful young girl who had just walked in and passed him on her way to the pastries.

“Hey,” Harry calls after her, “it’s snowing tonight?”

She doesn’t acknowledge him completely, but the turn of her head and the little smile she gives him is enough of an answer.

Harry quietly claps his hands together as he swivels around rather embarrassed, mumbling uselessly, “Oh that’s right… stranger danger, ha, sorry.”

His rolling eyes land on the automatic sliding doors at the front of the store. Sensing the return of a knot in his stomach, he regresses from his openness and crosses his arms to hide himself again. Maybe he just needs to step out into the crisp weather and air out his insides, because he’s by himself and increasingly losing his grip to the repetitive drum of _12 Days of Christmas._

He checks the black, gold-lined Rolex watch on his wrist. _6:04pm._

“Uh—?” His cheeks start to feel warm and his hands find his scalp under his tangled hair. Racking his brain for clarity to his disparaging confusion, the only moving parts of his body are his darting eyes. “Should I be somewhere right now?”

Before he could catch up, he’s striding to the nearest employee and asking, “Hello, what day is it?”

Receiving an odd look makes his palms clammier and his chest hotter under his thrifted leather jacket.

“Christmas Eve?”

Harry takes a small step back, and then another, until he’s standing at arm’s length from the cashier. He presses his lips together and inhales slow breaths through his nose, shoving his hands into his pockets.

He hasn’t forgotten, then. He had seen the date on his phone; he had seen it on his calendar when he glanced at it before dashing out the door and he had heard it from every passerby that greeted him on the streets who pitied the hollow look on his face. It’s Christmas Eve and Harry had spent the day forgetting that it was.

“Listen, I already told you I just got off work and I’m getting us dinner from Publix…”

It arrived out of thin air, that voice. Harry unknowingly turns his ear to hear it better.

“Well, if you don’t want Publix food then just order takeout… Yeah, that one place that delivers… I know we’re going to a Christmas dinner party tomorrow, that’s why I don’t mind eating fried chicken tonight… Ok… Ok, bye.”

Nodding at the cashier before taking his leave, Harry hastily follows the sound of that voice until he’s brought to a standstill when every other sound in the grocery store stops—the checkout beeps, the squeaky shopping cart wheels, the crunch of the ice under boots hitting the tiles, the cry of a toddler wanting a candy cane, the papery crackle of wrapping paper, the crumple, the tap, the clinks, the rips, the tears, the swipes, the ‘ _five golden rings_ …’

…They all just stop, and at the front end of the frozen foods section, unmoving and unsuspecting, Harry registers two things: the transition of the upbeat music to the honey sweet voice of Frank Sinatra and the aching sight of someone he once knew.

And as if his body understood before his brain, Harry’s legs intuitively propel him forward; his arm reaches out into the air before him, and at the crescendo of the song his fingertips touch the sleeve of the man’s sweater. The burn of the contact lasts as long as the open note in the song.

It’s the swift turn of the man’s head that causes Harry to retract his hand so quickly he’s brought back from his thoughts to the grocery store in its muted banality.

“Niall,” Harry says after what seems like a tangible lag in time. It didn’t sound like a question, and it didn’t have a sense of certainty in the tone, but he noted the way his tongue moved around the name—the shape that his mouth made.

Any other words he had wanted to say dies in his throat as the seconds wear on for a few more.

Surely enough, an undeniable spark erupts in the irises of Niall’s eyes. “Harry!”

He throws his arms open, dropping the loaf of bread and boxes of TV dinners in the process, and sinks into Harry’s chest. Harry drapes his own arms over Niall’s shoulders, and as he feels Niall rest his chin against his neck, he holds his breath and bites his lip and closes his eyes and he just _lets himself be hugged._ His head is spinning and his heart is bursting like newborn stars in a galaxy thousands of light years away. It’s Christmas Eve and Harry had decided to go to the grocery store.

“Um, you dropped some stuff,” Harry mentions, his fingers slowly starting to trail down Niall’s spine before they pull apart.

Niall doesn’t have anything to say to that. Instead, he laughs loudly, and then Harry laughs, so the two carry on laughing until tears line the rims of their eyes. Catching Niall snort a little when he bent down to pick up his things, Harry’s giggles soften to a hum and he stands there to examine him. Looking at Niall, it’s easy for Harry to see the years they had been apart, for the blond is completely gone from his head and he has more hair on his jaw. His thoughts are interrupted when Niall jumps to stand back up, and even then the corner of his mouth still held the amusement from moments ago.

Wiping his eye with the end of his sweater, Niall clears his throat, “I can’t believe I ran into you just now.”

“Neither of us was running exactly,” Harry states jokingly.

“You’re still horribly good at those.” Niall giggles through his smile, “Those jokes, I mean. They’re still stupid.”

“Heyyy, I thought you found them charming! You said they were charming when I—” Harry begins, but he’s smiling too hard to finish.

They share a few more exchanges as they head to the front to checkout their items. Beginning to say fewer and fewer sentences, Harry eventually waits quietly next to the employee bagging Niall’s food. It was when the bagger handed Niall his groceries that Harry notices the gold band on his left ring finger.

In that moment, though, Niall faces Harry and holds out his hand. “It was so great to see you again. I mean it, Harry.”

Tentative for only a split second, Harry clasps their hands together and instantly meets Niall’s eyes with dilated pupils. There’s a dazzle in them that Niall is achingly familiar with, like it was 2014 all over again, and he fights past the emotional shock to hear what he says to him.

“Do you want to grab a drink with me?”

“How long has it been?” Niall asks reminiscently, feeling Harry’s fingers finally slip from his hand. This was Niall’s fleeting second chance at being twenty-one; to be full of abandon and promise all at once and yet again.

“Only ten years,” Harry says, his heart pressing itself against his ribcage, restless and wanting.

-

-

It was a quarter til seven when the two were disappointed to find that there weren’t any bars open that night. In their haste, they rummaged through the liquor store and came out with a single six-pack of beer to drink in Niall’s car. No, it wasn’t a ceremonious place to recount memories, but it was momentous all the same.

“Hey, Niall?” Harry initiates, licking the bit of foam on his upper lip, “Are you—?”

And he doesn’t finish. It’s the atmosphere of the moment, he supposes, that halted his question. Niall is waiting, yes, he’s waiting, but the moonlight is also hitting the side of his face in a certain way and the radio is all static noise—this scene is one that Harry had lived through before. The past superimposed the present and it sucked the air from his lungs.

“You’re married.” He whispers, and the words don’t leave his mouth like a question.

Sighing, Niall holds up his hand to look at his own ring. There’s a dull glow in the metal; it doesn’t shine the way Harry’s eyes glisten when he’s entranced by the features of Niall’s face, which all used to unravel him stitch by withering stitch. They have grown with him through the years, but Harry wasn’t there to see that happen.

“I am,” Niall put on a smile. “For five years now. I met her three years before we got married when she was finishing her last year in uni as an Architecture major. She’s an Urban Planning specialist, but we were able to design our own house together after our honeymoon. So, while living in an apartment, we got it built and settled in as soon as it was finished. It’s warm and dry, and it keeps us safe.”

He laughs shakily, “It keeps us _all_ safe.”

Harry sits, unmoving, in the passenger seat while Niall fidgets in his own seat. “My wife, myself, and our daughter. Eight months after we moved in, we had our first child. Her name’s Clara and she’s turning six soon. Her birthday’s coming up in February.”

Harry gives him a genuine smile. “Congratulations, Niall.”

“Actually,” Niall tilts his head, letting it rest on the car seat while his eyes focus on Harry’s timid smile, “You two have the same birthday.”

“No way?”

“Yeah, I know,” he replies feebly. “Every time her birthday comes, and we celebrate it, I look at her and somehow I think of you. I know it’s ridiculous and all, but it’s every year on that day that I find myself wondering where you are—if you’re alright. I keep that to myself, though… I keep it to myself…”

Niall breathes out through his nose, raises his can, and downs the rest of his drink. While raking his fingers through his hair, he stares at Harry with wide, knowing eyes. He notes his lips pressed tightly together and the silent, polite agony in his gaze. Niall recognizes the contradiction on Harry’s face and the seconds slither free from them like sand in a broken hourglass.

“You don’t have to ask me, Harry. I can still read your face as easily as I could before.”

He coughs lightly, and then grabs the steering wheel—so unsure of himself all of a sudden.

“I’d like to say I love my wife. I really want to believe I love her, for Clara’s sake.”

And Harry sees it. If he had blinked he would have missed it, but he saw the flicker in Niall’s light. It wasn’t at all like a busted fluorescent light in a soulless laundry mat, or a dodgy letter of a neon ‘open’ sign on the door of a run-down pawn shop. This is the sun blinking out.

“We don’t fight. We don’t do anything. We sort of just tolerate each other. I love her as my daughter’s mother, but not the way I loved her on our wedding day. And even then, I—”

Niall groans in aggravation. “I’m sorry for babbling on and on about this.”

He hits the back of his head on the seat and just lays there, narrowed eyes locked on the roof of his car. Against the backlighting of the dim lamp several meters from them, Harry soaks in the image of Niall’s silhouetted hair being outlined by a halo of yellow light.

“Hey, Niall,” Harry breaks the silence with a fluttering tone in his voice. “The years have been a friend to you. Your eyes are still as blue as I remember them.”

Niall lifts up his head to look at Harry, but he shies away—his right hand lingering on the wheel and his left supporting his head as he stares out the window.

Softly, he speaks after a minute passes, “I saw you in a record store. I had kept up with you for a couple years, but then stopped. A few years ago though, I was in that store looking for one of them vintage Kings of Leon albums, and there was your CD in another section; your face and name on it like wistful reminders. I thought to myself, ‘I hope he’s happy.’ And, I guess, I’m still hesitant to believe I’m actually with you right now. You look like you’re alright. You must be?”

Niall worries his bottom lip in fear of rambling again. Harry laughs quietly at Niall’s fumbling; his hands are on his knees and his shoulders are hunched up attempting to hide his embarrassment with a meek smile.

“I’m fine,” Harry tries to ease him with a perk in his giggle, “No, really, I’m fine. I have a small apartment really close to here that I’m staying in for a while. I ended my previous tour in September. But, yeah, the audience is heavenly. It’s the traveling that I hate. It’s hell when you’re sitting in your empty bus after a gig or aimlessly walking around a new city by yourself. Usually, writers thrive off that time they have alone with their thoughts, but it drains me, to be honest.”

Harry catches Niall out the corner of his eyes leaning closer to him to hear the rest of his mumbled words.

“Do you ever think about our times together?” Niall brings up. “Do you remember that charity football match we did with the boys from uni?”

“How could I forget?” Harry beams at the memory. He let out a short, breathy sigh in recollection.

His heartbeat was in his ears, he could hear it so well even with the pound of the cheers from the audience. There was a looming tension, almost like trepidation, that vibrated within his bones just before he took the penalty shot for the team. It was the roar that followed that sent him flying to Niall.

“That was for you! That was for you, Niall!” Harry yelled as he raced towards him with every inch of his body radiating from his core. The feeling of their hug still resonated with him; the sound of their windbreakers rustling between them still echoed through the years and the sleepless nights Harry sometimes finds himself having.

Harry accidentally squeaks as he lets out an unexpected cackle, which Niall mirrors, filling up his car and the deserted parking lot with uninhibited happiness. “Remember that one time we were hilariously drunk with our friends—”

“—be specific—”

“I will if you let me finish!” Harry yelps with laughter, “Anyway, we were singing bad karaoke all sloppy and embarrassing. I think someone still has a video of that, that’s the only reason why I would remember because he showed me. It’s probably on the internet for all we know.”

“Yes!” Niall nudging Harry’s arm with his knuckles, “You were all over me that night, too.”

“No, I wasn’t?” Harry gasps, pushing Niall by his shoulder and letting out an offended huff, which creates an icy cloud in front of him from the cool air.

Laughing again, Niall pulls out the next two cans of beers for Harry and himself. At the hiss of the cans being opened, Harry hums, “mhmm,” as if Niall had meant it as an apology. Niall hands him the can with a dimpled grin.

“We had some pretty sick times before we graduated, didn’t we…” Niall hesitated, “… _bro.”_

Harry retracts, gawking at him. It was after giving Niall an utterly baffled look when he completely lost it, “Don’t do that, oh my _god._ How old are we? I can feel my bones rattling, that’s how old we are and that’s how much we shouldn’t be like that.”

“You’re only thirty-one!” Niall put his beer in the cup-holder to cross his arms over his stomach, howling with laughter, “You still look good, bro, I promise! You’re not the one looking at yourself right now.”

Harry lifts up an eyebrow carefully. Taking a small sip of his beer, Harry absorbs a little bit of that courage and asks, “So, this is fun and all, but let’s ask the more interesting questions.”

He leans back on his seat and gapes at Niall with such intent it pierced right through him; the faint aura that pulsed around Harry’s body had a rich, alluring red color to it. “Was I the last person you had sex with?”

Niall snickers, “You mean aside from my _wife,_ you bloody idiot?” He continues after inquiring, but there’s a sultriness in Harry’s eyes that’s mesmerizing enough to still him. Rolling his eyes, Niall touched his lips delicately and averts his gaze by dipping his head forward.

“You already know the answer to that, Harry.”

“I just want to hear you say it.”

Niall mewls helplessly, but he simpers when he says, “Yes.”

A satisfied grin envelopes Harry’s face soon dissolving into a stolid expression once more.

Niall’s breathing slows down to a lethargic pace, and it is evident to Harry when he sees the memories flash in the reflection of Niall’s eyes that he’s thinking the same. There are thousands of lights and there are thousands of sounds, but none of them are here right now. In the motionless air surrounding them, an unspoken reminder sits on Harry’s chest—invisible and sinister like the demon in Fuseli’s _The Nightmare_ —the weight of it slowly suffocating him.

At the height of the tension, Niall reiterates with assurance wound in his accent. “There wasn’t anybody else, Harry. It was only you. Even after us, after what we had, it was still you… until I had to move on.”

Harry widens his eyes, awestruck yet dismayed by the repressed words that finally dripped from Niall’s mouth. Keeping his face towards the window, Niall tries to swallow the lump in his throat.

Harry licks his lips; his lungs are suddenly too big for him to fill up and his veins are alive with fire. “We didn’t have to—we didn’t have to end it—”

Niall reacts, sounding hurt, “We did. We had to stop and you know why. Please don’t act like this is a recoverable thing—like _we’re_ a recoverable thing. It’s over now, and it had to happen.”

Niall furrows his eyebrows, the lines of his forehead tight and full of frustration, as he meets his disheartened reflection in the window. Harry drops it, scared of pushing Niall too far, so he turns to look out his side of the car. It’s cool and crisp out there in the desolate parking lot, he thinks, and he could feel the frostbitten air touch the tip of his nose. Several minutes pass in silence, leaving only their visible breaths to disturb the space. He peers back at Niall and he wishes he could just hold him; he wants to bury his fingers in his hair and plant his lips on his warm neck and just mumble “I’m sorry” into his skin until it remains there like a tattoo.

“Hey,” Harry coos, sensitively placing a hand on Niall’s forearm. When Niall gradually turns around, Harry raises up his beer. “To innocence.”

He gives Niall his can and presses his own against it, hearing the ring of their contact.

Niall mutters his toast, unable to help smiling a little again, “To now.”

-

-

It takes them another forty-five minutes to finish all the beer, because they’re all slow chatter and cold skin just trying to find warmth in their company. At the end of their conversation, with neither wanting to suggest leaving yet, Harry is the one to turn on the radio to the station with the Christmas music, and he’s enthused that _Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas_ sung by the Carpenters is playing.

Harry reclines with a silly smile, then he shifts his position in his seat so he’s on his side and facing Niall, his smile unwavering.

“I love this one,” he sniffs with a dreamy look in his eyes.

Niall, who was already on his side, mimics the same drowsy yet satisfied expression, “Me too.”

And without breaking eye contact, Harry opens his mouth to sing, _“Have yourself a merry little Chr istmas; let your heart be light.”_

Niall wrinkles his nose in adoration then picks up the lyrics, _“From now on our troubles will be out of sight.”_

“I like it when you sing,” Harry tells him, and he can’t help the want in his voice; he can’t help but let the longing coat each and every syllable that oozes from his tongue.

The silvery moonlight finds its way to Niall eyes just then, signaling the return of his own light, and Harry basks in his radiance. They continue singing, rich in their ephemeral eternity, their doomed elation, uprooting the rawest of their memories together. In the depths of Harry’s being, right where his heart aches, he wished Niall had gone along with him those ten years ago.

 _“Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore,”_ they sing; Harry’s voice being the raspy, baritone tenor to Niall’s gentle soprano, _“Faithful friends who are dear to us gather near to us once more.”_

_“Through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow. Hang your shining star upon the highest bough…”_

The two hold the note until Harry’s harmony fades and he, overwhelmed with wishes, scared of losing Niall to the demands of practicality again, reaches out to put his hand on his cheek. It stuns Niall, keeping him from continuing, so the song finishes without them. The feeling of Harry’s hand shaking is frigid and rough to the touch, but delicate and tender all the same—a contradiction that makes Niall pine for more. He doesn’t want to run from this, he doesn’t want to turn away this time, so he holds on to it, this moment, like desperate claws searching for ground to cling to.

Harry runs his thumb soothingly across his cheek. He notices the pale color to them, then, trailing his thumb to Niall’s lips, he soaks in their soft hue. Daringly, he presses his bottom lip lightly, and Niall lets him do it, lets him explore and touch and feel as he stares back at him through feathery eyelashes.

Instinctively, Niall lifts up his own hand and places it on Harry’s. It was his left hand, the pads of his fingertips tracing Harry’s knuckles, but Harry pushes through his trance to remember the ring.

Not five, but one, single, defining golden ring.

“I should go,” Harry struggles to say.

Niall closes his eyes, reeling himself out in time, blinking them open after Harry pulls his hand away.

“Would you like me to drive you to your place? It’s really cold out,” Niall whispers, almost inaudibly.

Trying to breathe through the tightening of his chest again, Harry nods as he hears the grumble of the engine turning on.

-

-

“This is me,” Harry points out as they approach his place, and Niall parks the car perpendicularly to the sidewalk. They sit quietly until Harry finally unbuckles his seatbelt.

“Harry wait,” Niall says hurriedly. He extends his arms and Harry melts in them, his own arms around Niall’s back. He feels a warm kiss on his cheek before he lets go, which only makes him want to stay even longer.

“Take care, Harry.”

He climbs out of the car and walks around to the front. Niall watches him stand there with his hands shoved in his pocket, and he looks as if he’s still pondering over something he can’t let go.

All of a sudden, he’s by the driver’s side of the car, his hands out of his pockets and onto the glass. The window rolls down and Harry’s shaking his head, the snow at the tips of his hair moving with him, “I’m still in love with you.”

Owl-eyed and unable to respond, Niall only exhales, disturbing the path of several falling snowflakes.

Harry, still shaking his head, tells Niall with a hoarse voice, “I don’t know what to call this— _this,_ right now, _right here,_ where we are. But we did meet again, whether it was good for us or not.”

Niall squeezes the steering wheel, powerless.

“Usually when people meet again after years, after decades, they’ve truly, irremediably moved on. There isn’t anything between them anymore and nothing can fix that. But that isn’t true for me right now, not with what I’ve been feeling all night.”

Harry examines Niall’s unresponsive expression.

“Is it true for you, Niall?” Harry gulps down the trepidation.

“Will you at least remember me?” Harry mutters through his shivering. He shakes his head one last time. “Even if you forget, or choose to forget, I’ll remember us.”

Niall’s downcast eyes don’t return to Harry’s face. Feeling defeated, Harry steps away from the car.

Suddenly, Niall’s unlocking his door and stepping onto the mush of the white snow beneath their feet. Without hesitation, Niall cups the sides of Harry’s face with his hands and kisses him.

Languid and slow—tongues tasting of the faint trace of the beer they had—Harry tugs Niall closer to him. He’s living and reliving everything they’ve done and he’s mixing up the past, the present, and even the future, but between the sounds of their kissing, all he can mumble is: “We fit.”

“I know we do—”

Niall sighs into Harry’s mouth, heavy with regret, weighed down by all the things he had kept himself from saying, and he feels Harry lap his tongue against his own.

“—and it kills me.”

Niall grabs both of Harry’s biceps and pushes them apart. Holding Harry there, glancing at his lax lips then looking back up in his eyes, Niall says, “Years can change a person, Harry. They’ve changed me, they’ve changed my circumstances— _yours_ —everything.”

“I could’ve walked away. I didn’t have to do anything or say anything. I could’ve walked out of that grocery store just knowing I saw you again, but I didn’t… I didn’t.” Harry explains, but to no avail. There it is again, the expressionless look on Niall’s face, and it’s gnawing at his bones trying to get at his heart.

“I came back to you after all,” Harry whispers, trying to convince him.

Niall cups the side of Harry’s face, unable to say something at first, but he settles on, “Years can change a person, even their promises.”

“I still love you, Harry,” he says, “I was skeptical at first, like ‘how could I feel the same after a decade of not seeing you? How does that happen?’ But I felt it all night, too. The universe sure has its way of making me believe in it again, but it could never let us work a second time.”

Harry’s stance softens, causing Niall to release his hands and put them in the pockets of his jeans. Harry feels the chilly wind slice the skin of his knuckles when he takes his left hand and tucks a finger under Niall’s chin. He leans in cautiously and plants his lips onto Niall’s in the gentlest way he can, like a leaf had fallen from a dying tree and landed gracefully onto the calm surface of a lake.

Maybe if they had met at another time in another place, or not at all, they could have evaded their unfavorable situation. Even so, Harry ends the kiss by pressing their foreheads together, believing that that wasn’t their last, but only their second to last.

Getting back into the car, Niall buckles his seatbelt and shifts into reverse, but his foot stays on the brake pedal.

“Goodbye, Harry,” he whispers. “Maybe… maybe one day.”

He rolls up the window, backs up, and drives off. And that was it. Harry steps out into the middle of the road and watches the car as the past overtakes him once more.

-

-

“Niall, why won’t you come with me?”

Harry asked as he peered down at Niall whose head was resting on his lap. They were on the couch in Harry’s apartment on campus and Harry had been sitting on the couch when Niall came back with their glasses of beer from the kitchen. Niall had plopped down lengthwise on the couch, grabbed the guitar that leaned against the coffee table, and wiggled around until he was in the perfect lounging position. He was idly plucking the notes of several chords on the guitar, which was splayed across his stomach like a napping cat, when Harry asked him.

Harry asked again, this time petting Niall’s head and running his fingers gently across the wisps of his blond hair to really get his attention.

“Niall, I’m serious, why don’t you want to come with me? I told my new agent that I’d sound better with you. Everyone thinks we’ll always be a duet singing together forever, that’s what they say. It should be our legacy when we leave uni.”

 Harry tenderly brushed Niall’s bangs from his forehead with his palm. “I know we’re almost seniors. I know your parents are stern about you finishing school, but—”

“See, Harry, you already know my answer,” Niall sighed, strumming a blank chord before he stopped playing completely. “This opportunity is incredible for you, because it’s what you’ve wanted since you stepped foot on campus as a music major. You realized singing was your passion instead of piano, and you grew from there. Me? I only found out I liked singing when you charmed me into trying it when we met. You were so encouraging, and we sounded good, so it almost made me regret being an accounting major.”

Niall let his response dissolve into silence before he continued. He did so with a smirk on his face and a laugh at the edge of his lips. “Don’t let me have taken that goddamn Financial Accounting course for nothing, Harry. That class killed me last year. I better utilize that knowledge.”

“We could write songs about balance sheets and taxes if you want.”

“Harry, stop,” Niall laughed at that, and Harry made it worse by tickling his neck.

“What if I propose to you? Will you be my harmony then?” Harry wails lightheartedly.

It was when his cheeks turned a rosy color that Harry raised his hands a bit as if he didn’t do anything. Niall stretched his arm to slap Harry’s wrist. “You’re such an idiot.”

He reached down with his left hand to prop up his guitar on the table again. Niall closed his eyes and tried to regain his composed breathing. After Harry traced his fingers over Niall’s jaw, he said, “I can’t play the guitar that well. I need you; otherwise I’d have to play with some other bozo with a six-string.”

Niall peeked at Harry’s face with one eye, then both. “I—Harry, I have to graduate… You understand that. I have to graduate for my parents. For myself.”

Harry fell silent, letting it go.

Enough time had passed between their conversations that the sunset’s dim light through the window died out, leaving the glass dark and the trees outside to appear like motionless shadows, their outlines indistinguishable.

“So, you’re really gonna do it?” Niall asked pensively, his eyes bright under the warm colored light of the lamp. “You know doing a long distance relationship would be too hard for us.”

“That’s why I want you singing with me. I want you traveling with me and being with me.” Harry’s voice was soft and reflective; his words carrying the weight of his yearning as his hands gently framed Niall’s head.

“I can’t,” Niall exhaled slowly, “We’ll be going in circles if we keep at it like this.”

Harry didn’t say anything more for a few minutes. In that time, he stared at Niall with eyes like the full moon. Soon enough, a wide smile emerged from his thoughtful stupor and a giggle escaped him.

“I love you,” Harry beamed as he struggled to hunch over to kiss him. His attempt to bend down got him nowhere and his puckered lips started to hurt, but Niall’s unbridled laughter incited his own despite his folly.

“You’re pathetically insatiable. Come lie down with me.”

“Where’d you learn that word? Financial Accounting?” Harry retaliated as Niall sat up to give him some room to snuggle in the space closer to the coffee table. Niall faced the back of the couch, the cushion nudging his nose, and he felt Harry’s arm wrap around him. Niall began to fidget again until he decided to just turn around so he was facing Harry.

“Hello, my love,” Harry said goofily. He kissed Niall’s lips lightly, but then Niall elevated his head a little so he could kiss him properly. Their feet slotted together and Harry’s arm pressed him closer to his body; Niall’s fingers curled against Harry’s cheek.

After a while, Harry turned around to lie on his left side, so Niall had his arm draped over him, and they were more comfortable this way. Humming, Harry mumbled sleepily, “We fit, just like this.”

Niall agreed, tightening his embrace and essentially purring into Harry’s shoulder when he felt Harry hold his hand to his chest. He kissed the side of his neck.

“Don’t be afraid of leaving me behind,” he whispered. Right at that moment, his emotions betrayed him and he felt a sting welling up in his eyes. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. They could’ve just fallen asleep that way, nestled against each other on that couch, but he wanted Harry to know something.

“If we both get too busy to talk to each other or if one of us moves on before the other…”

Niall squeezed his eyes shut before he finished talking. Harry had to know, Niall had to let him know. “If that happens, we just have to accept the way things turn out, because at least we have right now. At least we happened.”

Then, after a pause, his thoughts and feelings still at war within him, he tipped up his chin so his lips could find the sensitive skin of Harry’s ear. “But if you come back to me…”

Niall pressed his cheek onto his neck. “Harry, if you come back to me in a different time, under different circumstances, I’ll still love you just the same.”

Niall pushed on even with the lump in his throat. He kissed him behind his ear and promised, “Do you hear me, Harry? I'll love you like I do now, and right now I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Even as Niall told him, fear was laced in the sound of the syllables and it latched itself onto the promise, forming a new shape: the unwelcomed figure of Goodbye as it slowly walked toward Harry with hungry hands. Relentlessly, Harry stared at the approaching body, unidentifiable except for its claws stained with “I guess this is it” and “Good luck” and “Take care.”

Without Niall seeing, Goodbye reached out and touched the corner of Harry’s eye, leaving a single tear as its fingerprint.

-

-

A droplet of rain lands on Harry’s head and redirects his attention. He’s back, standing in the middle of the road as more and more raindrops sprinkle from above, dotting the snow at Harry’s feet. He tips his head back with squinted eyes and stares into the darkened sky, aware of the snow’s transformation. There’s a beauty in watching rain fall under the light of a streetlamp, because even with its starry beginning, it’s fleeting, with some of it fated to land on his skin, warm from the fire within him.

_Maybe one day._

Stuffing his fists back into his leather jacket, Harry rotates on his heel and heads to his door, tempted to look back.

It’s Christmas Eve and Harry had walked alone to the grocery store.


End file.
